Eclipse

The First Cummings said

she rattles like angry candy.
True.  

Luna'd been shooting wet Pop-Rocks 

like BBs against the wallpaper 

of the skull that lives in your face.

Every day.  All day.  For a while.

Filling the alleys with vodka 

just made her move slower 

and all of the pills stacked like cobbles

dissolved leaving you (again) with

that Italian bitch of a goddess Luna 

her bird shot adding: tic tic tic...

Hanging in the window were 

faces that were lean and brown 

as Peking duck now looking like

wrapped hams or cheeses.
I have been sitting for too long

waiting for a light to flicker 

in my votive coffee,
a penitent holding a vigil.

I looked up to say something
and you were there

in front of the garland and lights

smiling in all directions

the Second Coming of

The Buddha of Christmas

or something equally happy

which was altogether (almost)
incomprehensible to me.

We waited and we watched the

World-sickle sliced Creamsicle Moon
bleed out blood orange and go dim.

We kept warm by expanding
and "jiggling the particles"

and stirring the bonfire
while Luna hissed
"tick, tick, tick"

flicking frozen shards of
the longest night of the year
at us like hard-learned candy.

Dinnertime Carol

Predictions gave
your voices away.
I knew you would arrive,
to sing the new
Christmas carols.
A Grecian Chorus
perches rakishly
about my counterpane.
I feel your talons,
I who hide under the blankets
from the creditor
I invited to dinner
in better times.
It was always just the theater,
the silvered twin of life.
Now there's Don Giovanni
playing in the heat ducts.
The Stone Guest arrives
dragging me down
taking my car.

Fictions

When I am alone my fictions
start doing exactly the opposite
of what NYC cockroaches did
when I flipped the kitchen light on
for the midnight double vodka
I thought would put me to sleep.

The women who buy your drinks,
the men who buy mine don't know.
Maybe it's too precious to bring up,
or it's just convenient to leave it out.
Like Heisenberg: speed or location
but never both at the same time.

Your monologues to me at 4 am
are my non-fiction bedtime story,
but most of the time all I have
to work with is the classic noir:
chalk outline on the asphalt,
a pool of blood, and no witness.

All I know for sure is that
when we're under
the Christmas tree 
(unwrapped)
my fictions are quiet,
and in the morning you make quiche.